


Reflections in a Crystal Wind

by Stormvoël (BushRat8)



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: All the things he should have done, F/M, Melancholy, character introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-04
Updated: 2017-09-04
Packaged: 2018-12-23 18:17:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11995320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BushRat8/pseuds/Stormvo%C3%ABl
Summary: Captain Barbossa stands at the wheel one night, lonely and sleepless, thinking about the woman he will never cease to love, though she be lost to death.Post-WIDOW'S WALK





	Reflections in a Crystal Wind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [walkwithursus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/walkwithursus/gifts).



> The title is taken from an album by Richard & Mimi Fariña. There is a track on it called "Bold Marauder" (words and music by Richard Fariña) that fits Barbossa to a T (or a B). The reference to the wind is also so very apropos to any story concerning a ship's captain during the Age of Sail. I will give links to several versions in a postscript, including one by Plainsong that's from their archives but was never actually released. It's stunning.
> 
> Since this is after On Stranger Tides, the ship is Queen Anne's Revenge. I think, though, that Captain Barbossa still mourns the loss of the Black Pearl and always will. In a bottle or on the seas, wherever she is, whomever might captain her, she will always belong to him.
> 
> "To surrender one's flower" was a delicate way of saying 'to allow oneself to be deflowered.' You know: not a virgin anymore ;-) Even Barbossa can be tactful in both speech and thought when he wishes to be.
> 
> Since we finally learned in WIDOW'S WALK that the innkeeper's name is Sophie, it will be used here.
> 
> Hagia (EYE'-uh) Sophia — "Holy Wisdom" — is a staggeringly beautiful example of Byzantine architecture in Istanbul. It began life as a Greek Orthodox church in the 6th century, became a Roman Catholic cathedral during the first half of the 13th century, went back to being Greek Orthodox around 1265, was converted into a mosque in the 15th century, and became a museum in 1935. Barbossa was never limited to sailing the Caribbean and would certainly have known Hagia Sophia as a mosque (he probably pilfered a few things from it, as well).
> 
> Wandering tenses as Barbossa thinks of present and past; and, in case it isn't obvious, the story and universe of DMTNT do not exist in any way, shape, or form within the Barbossa/Innkeeper arc. Just thought it should be mentioned.

 

 

-oOo-

 

 

 

"I'll take her,"  Barbossa tells his helmsman, motioning him aside.  "Have yerself a drink, an' go get some kip."  
  
"Aye, sir!"  Being ordered off watch for a few hours of extra leisure and sleep is a treat after all the action of the past weeks, and the man scampers off before the captain can change his mind.  
  
Barbossa has no intention of changing his mind;  not this night.  Having lain restlessly in the dark watching shadows chase round and round the walls of the Great Cabin, he rises from his berth, rubbing the aching stump of his leg, done with trying to sleep.  He dresses and arms himself out of habit, but the one thing he leaves off is his hat.  There's no sun to burn him, no one to impress, and besides, he wants to feel the wind in his hair.  
  
The wheel's handles are smooth beneath Barbossa's hands, worn and shiny from years of rubbing, and shaped perfectly to fit within his palms.  He closes his eyes for a moment and smiles at the shiver he senses within the wood as the ship reacts to his gentle touch, urging her to adjust her course the barest fraction.  He caresses the curving wood of the wheel as he would a woman's body;  squeezes the handles and runs his thumbs over their tips…  
  
As happens more and more these days, the wood becomes soft flesh, the ship's creaking is a low, familiar voice whispering loving words in his ear, and Barbossa _remembers_.

 

  
-oOo-  
-oOo-

  
  
She was always there, waiting for him.  Barbossa was a much younger man then, though starting to grey a bit even so, when this child — this clumsy _child_ — carrying a tray much too big and heavy for her, caught his gaze, dropped her own, and almost dumped it in his lap.  Though he should have, so that the old woman who ran the inn could give the girl a well-deserved wallop, he never told anyone that a few rivulets of grease had run off the side of the tray and soaked into his waistcoat, leaving a spreading stain that would eventually become an old friend and reminder that he had both a home to which he might return for refreshment and a woman who would cherish and care for him there.  He wore that waistcoat until it fell to rags, but even now, he still has what's left of it and wouldn't give it up for all the treasure in the world.  _Sentimental_ ,  he sometimes snorts derisively at himself.  _Ye're a sentimental old fool_.  
  
Then Barbossa rounds on himself.  _So what?_   he thinks.  _What be wrong with an old man havin' a soft mem'ry t' cling to?  That sweet, kind Dove were yer very lifeline;  yer tether t' sanity when ye were buried in th' deepest pit of hell.  Bain't wrong that she should be so now._    
  
The little girl didn't remain little beyond that first encounter, nor could Barbossa keep himself distant from her once he saw how beautifully she was growing up.  She was different at every visit — a little older, softer, rounder — and her coarse clothes couldn't hide the curving, succulent figure beneath them.  He learned her name after hearing the old woman shout it from the kitchen:  Sophie, she was called.  Pretty Sophie.  A nugget popped up out of nowhere from his long-ago schooling:  the name of a lovely building full of riches he'd seen some years earlier:  _Sophia.  Hagia Sophia.  Th' name Sophie means Wisdom_.    
  
Each time he saw her, Barbossa would grin to himself and wonder how wise she'd be to surrender her flower to him, even as he determined that he should be the one to pluck it.  And he tried, with soft words and teasing and cajoling, to coax her into his bed, but when she was a maiden, he never got further than a blush and a shy, smiling "Perhaps."  
  
But that all changed when he went away and his greed took him to dark, starless places he'd never envisioned, and he'd wrapped his arms around her memory, that he'd not go completely berserk.  "I'll come back t' ye, young Sophie,"  he'd whisper as he hid away in his cabin, glad of the privacy it gave him from his crew.  "I know what I seen in yer eyes, an' 'twill bring me back more surely than any damnable gold.  I'll come back t' ye no matter how far away I must go or how long it takes t' return."  
  
Barbossa never imagined that his journey would take him to death.  He never for an instant believed that his return to feeling would be to the chill of blood loss instead of the warmth of Sophie's arms around his neck and her soft breasts against his chest.    
  
The mystic Tia Dalma had shown him that she'd looked into his heart when she raised him from the dead;  that she'd seen with surprise the maiden Sophie, grown in her loneliness to a tired spinster who loved him still and waited, hoping he remembered her.  But he never realized that, once returned to her goddess form, Calypso had brought the maelstrom to test him — and him alone — that he might be challenged to sail with all his skill and strength, proving himself worthy of Sophie's constant love, whether it be in victorious life or a brave death.  Calypso was the sea, merciless and cruel, but she could also occasionally be kind, especially where a sailor's woman was concerned, and for Sophie's sake, she would give Barbossa a chance.  
  
He didn't know Calypso's part in it, nor would he ever.  All he knew was that he'd lived, and that a fair wind had finally brought him home late at night to a port he hadn't visited in 15 years — he'd more than once prayed his thanks that none of the cursed gold had shown up there, lest he should have done some terrible harm to the town — with a hill and an inn set atop it.  He wasn't sure what he'd find once he got there, but it seemed the same, if a bit shabbier.  
  
And then his heart clutched in his chest when Sophie Grantham, no longer a maid-of-all-work, but a dignified innkeeper, came out to greet him, soft and sleepy-eyed and lovelier than ever in spite of the passage of time.  
  
When she showed him to his room, then slowly began to turn away, Barbossa put a hand on her wrist.  "Must ye go, sweet?"  he murmured in echo of their last meeting, so many years before.  "Will ye not stay?"  He moved a step closer, and another, the better to inhale her clean fragrance and impress upon himself that the moment was real.  "Ye have m' promise:  ye'll not regret it."  
  
He felt her nod, her fingers smoothing through his beard, followed by the shy, lingering touch of her lips to his own.  Had he kissed her, or she, him?  Did it matter?  
  
That first kiss was the sweetest he'd ever tasted.  It wasn't as though Barbossa hadn't had women since returning to life, but they were less an enjoyment than a frantic proving to himself that death hadn't made him less of a man.  But with his Sophie, he had nothing to prove to himself;  not when they'd known each other for so long.  
  
The last time, she'd said _Perhaps_ when he'd asked her to come to his room.  She might have, or not, and he was never to know, having been thwarted in his desire;  not by her, but by the untimely arrival of an urgent message from his ship.  But on this, the night of his homecoming, no untimely message came.  This time, she looked up at him and gave, not a girl's uncertain answer, but a woman's definite, loving _yes_.  
        
It was a night of passion for the ages, and in her watery home, Calypso smiled to herself, satisfied that she'd done right by the dark-haired girl she'd seen in Barbossa's heart and mind.  He'd passed her test of seamanship and courage and she'd given what grace she could.  Now, it would be for them to make their own way.  
  
  
  
-oOo-  
-oOo-  
  
  
  
  
The watch has changed, but Barbossa refuses to move from his position at the wheel even though the stump of his leg is hurting ferociously from the constant weight on it and the rubbing of the peg.  Sometimes he doesn't know if he's glad that Sophie never had to look at it, but then writes off such a stupid thought as his own misplaced vanity.  He'd rather face her in red-faced mortification than be without her at all.  
  
Over the years, in moments of clarity and self-awareness, Barbossa has taken an appraising look at himself and wondered what it was she could possibly have loved in him.  Then he berates himself for questioning such a gift.  _So aye, mayhap she were a fool t' love a scoundrel like me so completely_ ,  he thinks now,  _but I'd not give up one hour of that love;  not one second.  An' I'd not give up one instant of lovin' her back._  
  
Dear God, but he feels so widowed and bereft.  More than anything, that thought is what keeps a melancholy Barbossa up night after night.  He could have treated his Dove so much better:  said the words to tell her he loved her instead of assuming she knew:  put fragrant flowers in her hands, a gold ring on her finger, and properly wed her.  He knew she wanted that, although she never said a word.  
  
On days when he's honest with himself — which happens more and more frequently as time passes — he admits that he came to want it, too;  wanted her to know that he loved not only possessing, but also being possessed.  He would always remain a sailor and he'd have to leave her behind to wait for him, but at least he could have gone abroad as her husband and left her with the consolation of being his wife:  Sophie Barbossa, beloved bride of Hector.  
  
It's the one thing he sorely regrets not being able to carve on her tombstone:  a name he speaks a dozen times a day to keep it alive, if only in his heart.  _She were me wife in ev'ry way I can think of_ ,  he says to himself.  _P'raps, when I next return t' her port an' visit her grave, I'll scratch a married name 'pon her headstone noneth'less, so all will know_.  
  
He sniffles and dabs at his eye with the frill of his sleeve, thinking,  _An' as for me, I be Hector, widower of Sophie, an' no man shall tell me diff'rent._  
  
Barbossa wonders if she might somehow know that he bought derelict Grantham House and the land it stands on;  not because he has any interest in restoring it or running an inn, but because there are ghosts there that belong only to him:  of good times and bad, happy and funny and sad, and because his infant son's grave is there, unmarked in the back garden.  He'd initially thought to take him up and rebury him next to his mother, but then he remembered how Sophie had described how carefully and tenderly she'd put him into the ground, shrouded in her very best blackwork linen.    
  
Best let their child lie undisturbed and at peace,  Barbossa decided.  The truth is, he couldn't bear to look upon the tiny body;  and, in any case, it's what Sophie would want.    
  
Feeling a flood of tears starting to well up deep inside him, Barbossa yanks his thoughts back to far earlier, simpler, more pleasant times:  watching the little rough-clad maid going about her work, cleaning the rooms and the rest of the house, polishing the silver and plate.  Before the old, cranky innkeeper shooed him away, he'd lean in the doorway to the kitchen, watching her learning to cook.  
  
Ohhh, her cooking… Barbossa misses it every time he's served with shipboard fare;  misses it even more knowing he won't ever have it again.  The _Revenge_ has a pretty decent cook, as those things go, but he hasn't Sophie's touch with spices or her knowledge of when exactly to pull a chicken off the spit or how to make a stew rich with perfectly-cooked meat fit for a hungry man;  one that hasn't fallen apart into a grey mass.  She was a jewel among the town's landladies and innkeepers for the meals she put on her table, and he wasn't the only one who knew it.  
  
That kitchen saw more than cooking going on in it, once he'd returned after two lifetimes away.  Barbossa's smile is full of warm remembrance as he recalls the evening he found Sophie in the pantry, standing precariously on a step-stool and reaching for a sack of flour on a high shelf.  Being so much taller, he'd only meant to help her, but then he lost his grip and it fell down on them both, the flour scattering everywhere.  "Bloody hell's fuckin' bells!"  he growled, coughing, when she suddenly slipped off the wobbly stool and fell straight into his arms.  
  
So much for his embarrassed irritation.  
  
Ignoring the billows of flour on their clothes and in their hair, Barbossa kissed her, hard, and then made love to her right there, first pushing her forward over the pantry table and lifting her skirts so he could playfully pat a bit of the flour like dusting powder on her rump before he turned her over on her back and dropped down on her.  They tracked flour all over the house afterwards, snickering at each other the following morning when the maid came down from her room and gawked at the mess she was expected to clean up.  
  
Life with Sophie Grantham was full of such memorable moments over the years, but what cuts Barbossa the most deeply now is her absence from his bed at night;  not because of the carnal delight she gave him, but for the way she made him feel when she'd curl up against his side, cooing softly, whispering of how beautiful she found him, how safe and protected she felt when he was near, and that he made her life complete.  
  
Without her, his own life will never be complete again and he cannot bear it.    
  
Even the whole expanse of the sea wasn't enough to fill up the hole ripped in Barbossa's heart when he found out his beloved Sophie had died, sick and alone, in the mistaken belief that he'd forgotten her and was never coming back.  He'd gone on a rapacious tear for months after that, cruelly taking prize after prize, recklessly wading into battle in the desperate hope that someone would be able to overcome him and send him in death into the eternal embrace of his waiting Dove, but he's still unmercifully alive.  The only comfort he will ever have for the rest of his years is the ship itself:  her quarterdeck rocking beneath him, her wheel quivering at his touch, the flap of her sails, and the sound of the ocean lapping at her sides as a fresh wind blows through the long locks of his hair and does its best to dry his tears.

  
  
-oOo-  FIN  -oOo-  
  
  
  
  
  
  
-oOo-  Postscript  -oOo-   

 

  
  
Bold Marauder was written and composed by Richard Fariña.  The instrumentation is (usually) dulcimer and guitar.  If it doesn't channel Captain Barbossa, nothing does.

 

[Performed by Richard and Mimi Fariña.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWELgzRLBl8) This is the classic version of the song.

 

This is first time I ever heard it, with [Richard and Mimi Fariña performing on Pete Seeger's program in 1966](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KbSMYRMbDE).

 

[Performed solo by Richard Fariña.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jryiACA1gGs)

 

[Performed by John Kay.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhUkjeMDADg)

 

[Performed by Plainsong (unreleased).](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ve-UaLL5Zs) They sing it, for some reason, without the phrase "And I will soil the river" in the third verse, but hey, you can't have everything, and the rest of it is so damn beautiful.

 

There are other versions, but those are my favorites.


End file.
